MOULMEIN DAYS
UPPER RIGHT: A woman sits by tall ornamental wooden doors at a temple complex on a hill overlooking Moulmein. TOP LEFT: A mother and child near a mosque in Moulmein. MIDDLE LEFT: Stacks of huge crispy rice-paste crackers are sold at village markets in the Inle Lake area. LEFT: A bus is not always a bus in Burma. Here, waiting to leave Moulmein for some smaller nearby villages, the “bus” is the back of a very old truck with bench seating, open sides, and a wooden roof. The woman in the front chatted to me after I took this photo, and later showed me around the Kyaikmaraw temple.
WHEN THE BRITISH captured Burma’s southern coast in the First Anglo-Burmese war in 1826 (see Burma over Time), Moulmein, at the mouth of the Salween River, became their chief commercial city. The main business was the export of teak and other tropical hardwoods. Logs were hauled by elephants to the banks of the Salween and its tributaries in dry season, then floated downriver when the waters rose during monsoon season.
These days Moulmein is a quiet place in a beautiful location. Golden-roofed temples stand silhouetted on a ridge above the town. A huge new bridge spans the Salween, bringing traffic and the railway from Rangoon and the rest of the country. (Before the bridge was built, everything had to cross the river by ferry to reach Moulmein, which lies on the southern bank.) I stayed in a small guesthouse on the Strand Road, overlooking the river’s expanse and not far from the market. It’s mesmerizing to be in that huge open-skied wide-water landscape, like floating in space, especially in the pale dawn.
Down the road was a small Mon tea shop/restaurant, where I went early each morning to taste new dishes. I’d often see the local nan-piar (flatbread) seller there, stopping by with a basket of flatbreads, samosas, cooked beans, and sweet pastries on her head.
One day I caught a bus out to a small village where there’s a well-known temple called Kyaikmaraw. A woman I met on the bus showed me around and afterward invited me to meet her aunt and uncle, whose house was opposite the temple. The aunt was spry and lively and spoke some English. The uncle was alert, but his legs were paralyzed. As we sat on the floor in their airy front room sipping our milk tea, a neighbor massaged the uncle’s legs, rubbing them up and down, with cut lime halves, to stimulate the circulation.
In the warm air, lulled by the conversation, I felt myself gradually falling into a drowse. They noticed me struggling to stay awake and told me to just give in to it. The aunt had already nodded off. People nap in the heat of the day—it’s a normal pleasure in Burma. I lay right down on the mat where I was sitting, relieved to be able to let myself drift off. Their voices were a soft sound track for my dreams as I slipped away.
An hour later I was awake again, refreshed. It was time to thank my hosts and catch the bus back to Moulmein.
magic rice balls
[MOUN LON YEI BO]MAKES 32 FILLED BALLS OR ABOUT 125 SMALL BALLS
The Burmese name of these treats—traditional food at the Burmese water festival, in mid-April—translates as “sweets rising in the water.” The balls, made of a rice dough wrapped around small chunks of palm sugar, are dropped into a pot of boiling water. They swell as they cook and bob to the surface; when done, they are translucent, so they look a little like large peeled lychees. The magic comes when you bite into them, for each one hides a smoky, sweet molten core of palm sugar.
Smaller balls made of the same dough but without a filling are served topped with a light sugar syrup and a sprinkling of coconut shavings.
I usually make only the larger balls, but the traditional way is to divide the dough in half and make both filled balls and smaller ones.
½ cup rice flour, plus more for dusting
About ¾ cup lukewarm water
FOR FILLED BALLS
About ⅓ cup dark palm sugar (or maple sugar) chopped into small chips the size of a half-peanut
FOR SMALLER BALLS IN SYRUP
1 cup or more Sugar Syrup (recipe follows), or substitute maple syrup
Grated fresh coconut or defrosted grated coconut (see Glossary), toasted
Combine the two flours in a medium bowl, then add about ½ cup of the water and stir to mix well. Dribble in a little more water and stir some more. You want a smooth dough that is not too soft or sticky. If you find the dough is a little too soft to work with, turn it out onto a work surface dusted with plain rice flour and roll it around to incorporate a little more flour, then return it to the bowl. Set aside for a moment.
Put out a small bowl of water for moistening your hands as you work. Set out a serving plate for the larger balls or a shallow bowl for the smaller syrup-coated balls. Pour 4 inches of water into a wide pot and bring it to a boil.
To shape the larger balls: Once you have made a few, you will be able to estimate how much dough you need by eye, but to start with, it’s helpful to divide the dough, measuring out what you need. Cut the dough in half and set one half aside in the bowl, loosely covered with plastic wrap to prevent drying out.
Place the remaining dough on a work surface lightly dusted with rice flour and use a dough scraper or knife to cut it in half and then in half again. Cut each of these pieces into quarters, to give you 16 pieces in all.
Lightly moisten your palms with water. Place a piece of dough on the palm of one hand and, with your other thumb, make a large dent in the center, flattening it a little. Place 2 or 3 chips of sugar in the hollow, and pull the sides up around to cover it. Roll the ball lightly between your palms to smooth it out and set aside on a plate, When all 16 balls are shaped, drop them into the boiling water. The balls will sink and then slowly rise back to the surface. Let them bob there for about 5 minutes, then use a spider or a slotted spoon to lift them out onto the waiting plate. Repeat with the remaining dough.
To shape the smaller balls: Cut the dough in half and set one half aside in the bowl, loosely covered with plastic wrap. Place the remaining dough on a work surface lightly dusted with rice flour and cut in half and then in half again. Shape balls from one piece at a time, to start; each of these small pieces will yield 16 small rice balls (cut each into 4 pieces, then divide again into quarters). Quickly roll the pieces into balls between your palms and drop them into the boiling water; they will swell and bob up to the surface very soon. Let them cook for 2 or 3 minutes longer, then lift them out with a spider or slotted spoon and transfer to the shallow bowl. Drizzle on some syrup, turning them so all surfaces get coated; this prevents them from sticking together as they cool. Repeat with the remaining dough. Top the pile of rice balls with the coconut.
Magic Rice Balls, two ways: the smaller ones in sugar syrup with a topping of coconut, with a bowl of the larger ones behind.
sugar syrup
MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP
1 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar or 1¼ cups palm sugar
¼ teaspoon rose water (optional)
Pour the water into a small pot set over medium heat, add the sugar, and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the rose water if you wish, and simmer for 1 minute before removing from the heat.
SERVES 6 TO 8
In this delicious cross between a custard and a pudding, cooked tapioca is topped with a layer of creamy coconut-milk custard. The contrast between the soft chewiness of the tapioca and the smoothness of the custard is a pleasure. With 3 tablespoons sugar, the pudding is sweet but not intensely so; you may prefer to use 4 tablespoons sugar. I like to mix white and green tapioca pearls so the tapioca layer is bright green. Use the regular ones, not the big pearls that are used for bubble tea.
Serve this chilled in small bowls as dessert or as a sweet treat. Top each serving with slices of mango or peach if you wish.
TAPIOCA
3 cups water
¾ cup regular tapioca pearls (white, colored, or a mixture)
About ½ cup hot water, or as needed
Pinch of salt
¾ cup sugar
CUSTARD
4 large egg yolks
3 to 4 tablespoons finely chopped palm sugar or brown sugar
2 tablespoons rice flour
1 cup thick canned or fresh coconut milk (see Glossary)
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
Pour the 3 cups water into a wide pot and bring to a boil. Sprinkle in the tapioca and bring back to a boil, then lower the heat to maintain a strong simmer and cook, half-covered, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 15 minutes. Add water if the pan starts to run dry; I usually have to add between ¼ and ½ cup hot water at this point. Add the salt and continue to simmer until the tapioca is tender, another 5 minutes or so.
Add the sugar and stir well, then cook for a few minutes more. Pour into a 7-inch square cake pan or an 8-inch pie plate that is at least 2½ inches deep. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, until firm.
Whisk the egg yolks well, add the sugar, and whisk again. Sift the flour into the coconut milk and stir to make a smooth paste, add the vanilla extract, then add to the eggs and whisk or stir until you have a smooth batter.
Transfer to the top of a double boiler and cook, stirring frequently, until smooth and thick, 5 to 10 minutes (if the custard starts to clump, lift the pot away from the heat, toss in an ice cube, and stir, then resume cooking and stirring over lower heat). Pour the custard on top of the tapioca and smooth. Let cool for 5 minutes, then refrigerate. Serve chilled on its own or with fresh fruit.
street-side seductions
[AH-BOH]MAKES ABOUT 8 CREPES
I came across a vendor making these sweets one sleepy Sunday afternoon in Rangoon. She had two bowls, one of batter, the other of filling, and two small charcoal burners going. On each was a curved metal pan, like a minature wok but much heavier.
She added a little of the thin batter to one of the pans, lifted it to swirl the batter around, and put it back on the fire. It crisped up almost immediately on the hot metal surface. Then she ladled some of the filling onto the center of the crepe and covered the pan with a lid. A minute later, she turned the confection out onto her work surface. It was beautiful and delicate and looked like a Sri Lankan hopper, a bowl-shaped curve of fine crisp crepe, but with a thickened bulge of filling at the base.
Lifting an ah-boh out of the traditional curved pan, streetside in Rangoon.
I thought she’d just hand it to me, but no, rather shockingly, she folded two sides over the middle, breaking the delicate structure, and handed it to me all flattened. At the first bite I was in heaven, since the lush coconut-milk filling was a perfect creamy complement to the fine outer shell.
With specialized ah-boh pans not available outside Burma, the best implement to use is a cast-iron skillet (a wok is not heavy enough). The heavy skillet gives the right texture, even though the curved-bowl shape is missing.
I’ve experimented with using all rice flour as well as a mix of all-purpose and rice flour. Both work fine, but the mixture of flours gives more crispness. If you’re serving these for dessert, serve them straight from the pan, with a scoop of sorbet on the side, for a great contrast of texture and temperature.
By the way, the man who first told me the Burmese name for these blushed a little when I asked him what they were called. I didn’t understand his embarrassment until later, when I learned that ah-boh also means “vagina” in Burmese.
BATTER
1 cup rice flour plus a scant ½ cup all-purpose flour, or 1½ cups rice flour
1½ cups lukewarm water
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon baking soda
FILLING
6 tablepoons thick coconut milk, canned or fresh (see Glossary)
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons rice flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Peanut or vegetable oil for surfaces
Whisk the batter ingredients together in a medium bowl until perfectly smooth. Set aside to rest for 30 minutes. Mix the filling ingredients together in a bowl until perfectly smooth; set aside.
Heat a 7- or 8-inch cast-iron or other heavy skillet over medium heat. Add a little oil and then after 20 seconds wipe the pan out with a paper towel. Place the pan over medium-high heat. Stir the batter. It should be very liquid; add a little more lukewarm water to thin it if necessary, and stir again. Pour a scant ¼ cup batter into the pan and lift and tilt the pan so the batter flows out to the edges. Cover and cook for 20 seconds or so. Spoon 1 generous tablespoon filling onto the center of the crepe, cover, lower the heat slightly, and cook for 1 minute. Check to see if the filling has set; if not, cover and cook a little longer.
Take the pan off the heat, fold the crepe in half, and transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining batter and filling.
